14 DAY TRIAL // Spam messages are starting to “graduate” from email services to social media, and the number of such messages on networks such as Facebook, Twitter and others is growing constantly.
According to a study from Symantec, spam messages may have gone down in volume in the past few years, but they’re far from gone. Instead of disappearing, however, they’re transforming into something else.
The study shows that in the business medium, there’s been a 3 percent drop in spam numbers in the past year. For instance, instead of 30 billion spam emails per day registered back in 2012, in 2013 there were “only” 29 billion of them. The numbers include messages about diets, meds or dating sites.
There’s also the constant portion of malware ridden spam messages that are becoming even more popular. They’re being used for phishing or other IT attacks, while cyber criminals trying to spread malware can buy spam bots to help with the dissemination part.
Social media is the perfect medium for spammers
Nowadays, as the spam messages have turned into weapons of cyber criminals, there’s also a wider range of methods spam can be sent. Aside from email, whereas filtering can keep spam out to some extent, there are more and more messages of this type on social networks and other social sites.
Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, YouTube, Snapchat and even Tinder are full of such messages. Symantec estimates that out of 200 messages published on social media outlets, one is spam, while an additional 5 percent of apps found on such platforms are actually spam tools.
Considering the reach of spam messages via social networks, where one message is seen by dozens or thousands of people, this method is a lot more dangerous. While spam emails reach one individual at a time, sites like Facebook have a much bigger audience for each written post.
What’s worse is that on social sites it’s more difficult to spot the spammy posts because they can include links and fake accounts that make figuring out the source a lot more difficult, as opposed to immediately noticing an email that sounds off in your Inbox.
The study notes that while in the first phase spammers were using fake accounts, nowadays they’re using real accounts that have been compromised.
All in all, you should make sure that you keep an eye on what links you click on social media, only log into your accounts by typing in the address in the bar, enable two-step authentication and update your security tools and your browser.